For Raw, The Revival finally were able to become tag team champions. After months and months of seeing them go up against Bobby Roode and Chad Gable, it was about time WWE finally decided to shake things up in this rivalry. The tag team division got the attention it deserved this week and all of these guys were able to put on a great match. Hopefully, things start to go into a more intriguing direction now that the Revival are the champions.
For Smackdown, the gauntlet match they had between all of the competitors in the men’s elimination chamber was a great way to close out their show. Kofi Kingston ended up replacing Mustafa Ali after Ali announced he was injured and would not be able to compete in the match. Kingston put on a show as he defeated Daniel Bryan, Jeff Hardy, and Samoa Joe before losing to AJ Styles. Randy Orton ended up winning the gauntlet by hitting an RKO out of nowhere on AJ Styles to end the show. This match has really good build up going into the PPV and now after Kofi Kingston’s last minute placement in this match, it really does leave it up in the air who could win at the PPV.
The Bad
For Raw, Ruby Riott beat Nikki Cross and it was a quick match, which was won by Ruby Riott. Riott has a match on the PPV against Ronda Rousey and there has been minimal effort to build up this match. Rousey is more focused on her Wrestlemania match than this one and it is clear by the WWE is looking at it.
For Smackdown, they had a promo with the women’s tag teams from Raw building up their elimination chamber matches, and one of them was so bad that it has to be mentioned. When it was Nia Jax and Tamina’s time, Nia Jax kept cutting off what Tamina was saying by talking over her. This happened a few times and who knows if WWE meant to do this or not, but either way, it was painful to see.
The Final Verdict
With these being the go home shows before Elimination Chamber, WWE seemed only to really focus on two matches for the whole PPV. Those matches were both the Elimination Chamber matches, which do have big implications. But, WWE still should at least put effort into building up the other matches. Some of these were announced the day of this week’s show. Smackdown had the better show this week as a whole. A great gauntlet match and proper time put into all of their brand’s matches is the main reason why. In conclusion, WWE is more focused towards Wrestlemania so expect any of these PPV’s in between to shake things up going towards the biggest show of the year.
AEW superstar Adam Cole has opened up about what he calls a “scary” recovery from a second concussion that he suffered at AEW and NJPW’s ‘Forbidden Door’ event back in June 2022, with Cole set to make his return to the ring soon.
Cole specifically talked about memory loss as the most troubling aspect of his recovery:
”The memory stuff is the really, really scary part to me” Cole said, during an appearance on Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t CagesideSeats). “When you’re in the middle of a ring and there’s thousands of people around you and I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. That was really scary. So, I knew pretty early on after my memory started going that something was wrong.”
Cole’s road to recovery as an especially long one.
“The crazy thing was that after even a month, it was like that’s when real serious side effects started happening” he said. “Everything I said in my return in-ring promo that I did all of that was true, and more. There was a lot of stuff that was happening very late into the healing process, or, what I thought was late, like a month-and-a-half, two months.”
Cole is gearing up for his return to AEW, with all signs pointing to him stepping back into the ring at Revolution next month.
NXT Vengeance Day was a rousing success for WWE on Saturday which saw a number of headlines come out of the event that was well-received by fans, including an injury suffered by Donovan Dijak during his match with Wes Lee for the North American Championship.
Dijak suffered an apparent broken finger during the match, which was seen on camera and shared on social media.
Following the event NXT general manager Shawn Michaels provided an update on Dijak, stating he did not suffer a broken finger – “Yeah, everybody is good” Michaels said. “I announced it at gorilla, it’s got to be a miracle, It’s not broken.
“We got him x-ray, they said it’s not broken and so yeah, I guess what you do is you kind of numb it and put it back in place and that’s what’s happening now. But it is, again, a modern miracle because we all saw it, it was pretty gnarly looking. But, apparently, he’s going to be okay, which is obviously fantastic news for us and him.”
AEW owner and booker Tony Khan is certainly open to the idea of AEW and WWE working together for a potential crossover supershow, despite Khan’s consistent blasting of WWE over the last few years.
“It’s something I would certainly be open to and I think it’s an interesting thing for the future” Khan said during an appearance on WTF with Marc Maron. “It’s not something that’s ever really been done. They’ve kind of existed in their own space. We are working with a lot of wrestling promotions.”
Khan’s AEW has already worked with a number of promotions such as Impact Wrestling and NJPW, and WWE has even warmed to the idea of working with other promotions, as they have with Impact Wrestling, NJPW, and NOAH recently.
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